


Absolvere

by obstinatrix



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Codependency, M/M, S&M, This is a sequel to/elaboration on Purgare, although it can probably stand alone. Warning for bloodplay, and, mutual post-hell trauma, schmoop. Yep. Sorry. heard_the_owl, this one's your fault for you., uh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-13
Updated: 2012-01-13
Packaged: 2018-10-17 06:22:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10588221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obstinatrix/pseuds/obstinatrix
Summary: He did it for Sam, in the beginning. If Sam needed anything Dean was capable of giving, Dean would give it to him. Dean was doing something  right, easing Sam's pain with a new kind, unsullied by Lucifer.





	

**Title:** Absolvere  
 **Pairing:** Sam/Dean  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Word Count:** ~3000  
 **Notes/Warnings** : This is a sequel to/elaboration on [Purgare](http://obstinatrix.livejournal.com/121173.html), although it can probably stand alone. Warning for bloodplay, S&M, codependency, mutual post-hell trauma, and, uh, schmoop. Yep. Sorry. [](http://heard-the-owl.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://heard-the-owl.livejournal.com/)**heard_the_owl** , this one's ~~your fault~~ for you.  
 **Summary:** He did it for Sam, in the beginning. If Sam needed anything Dean was capable of giving, Dean would give it to him. Dean was doing something right, easing Sam's pain with a new kind, unsullied by Lucifer.

 

Things kind of go downhill fast. That's the natural law of the world; Dean knows that; he reads. Unsupervised, everything tends toward chaos. Everything in Dean's life stands as proof of that, from the accumulation of clutter in their motel rooms to the slow slide from shtriga-hunting to the brink of apocalypse and back again. He and Sam, this thing between them, it's just another victim of the trend.

He was doing it for Sam, in the beginning. Sam asked for it, and Sam needed it; there was no question about that. If Sam needed anything Dean was capable of giving, then Dean would give it to him, period. His time, his attention, his life -- they'd all belonged to Sam, long before Dean sold his soul at the devil's crossroads. And if, maybe, Dean got a little gratification out of Sam _asking_ him for help like he hadn't done in years -- out of Sam's admission of need -- well, that was okay. Dean had to be sure, _really_ sure, he was doing the right thing, or he'd never be able to bring himself to do it at all. Sam made these little sounds of gratitude when Dean drew the knife up the smooth inside of his arm, or across the skin of his thigh where the tan clung on even where the sun never got to it, and it was like a validation. It meant Dean was doing something right, easing Sam's pain with a new kind, unsullied by Lucifer, and that was _good_. It was okay for Dean to take pride in it; it was okay that it made him feel good too. Nobody had ever loved Sam like Dean did, and this was the proof, written and rewritten in the scars on Sam's skin.

It wasn't like he wanted to hurt Sam. Okay, so sometimes Dean felt strong impulses in that direction, like when Sam kept fiddling with the radio in the car after Dean had told him to quit it, or when Sam wouldn't fucking snap out of his pissy mood, even after Dean had apologised for using all the hot water. But that was just kids' stuff, wanting to pull on Sam's stupid long hair or punch him in the jaw just to get a reaction. This was -- y'know, this was drawing blood, and there wasn't a bone in Dean's body that wanted to do that to Sam. The heft of the knife in Dean's hand, the way it felt to cut into human flesh: these were familiar, but not from anything he'd done on earth, ritualistic like this, and so when Sam'd first asked, he'd said _no, Sammy, stop it. No_.

But the thing was, Sam kept asking. All those people on Alastair's rack, they'd never _asked_ for it. Those people, they'd been bad guys, soiled souls, and Dean had felt that hot flash of exhilaration as he carved them up because, hell, they deserved it more than he did, and it was a dog-eat-dog world down there. With Sam, it was -- it was the converse. Sam didn't deserve to be in hell, but it was with him all the same, _all the time_ , always. Dean could help him, use his knife to cut the pain away instead of grinding it deeper, and Sam kept _asking_. Begging him: "Dean, please. Please, I can't do it myself, he won't -- Dean, I need this, man."

It was like erasure. From the first time he saw that look on Sam's face, the pure relief, Dean was as much an addict as Sam was, whole body singing with the pleasure of providing the fix. He was the only one who _could_ provide it, ordained for the purpose by Sam, the only god he still believed in. He felt like a priest giving benediction as he worked his knife: _I absolve you. I absolve you_. Cutting all the rotten crap away until Lucifer was gone and all Sam could see was Dean.

So, okay. Maybe, for Dean, there was a lot to like from the start. Dean felt dumb even thinking it in so many words, but they both needed to feel clean again, the ruins at the cores of them bolstered, and this -- it did that. It was weird, and some part of Dean crawled a little when he thought about the exchange too deeply, but they kind of thrived on weird, always had. When the problem was technically impossible, there was no point in seeking a 'normal' remedy.

Looking at it that way, the progression between how it began and what it became seems pretty natural. These days, it's -- fuck, it's entrenched. There's no other word for it: it's part of them, what they do, how they survive. Sometimes, Sam decides to do his stupid self-denial act until he's curled up in the corner, yelling at someone Dean can't see, and times like that, Dean can't afford to wait to be asked. If Sam can't pull his hands away from his face long enough to see who's really taking care of him, Dean has to relieve him of the responsibility by tying his hands down; that's just logical. Sam trusts Dean with this shit, which makes it Dean's to deal with. So, he deals, and there's never been a night when Sam hasn't gone slack and placid by the second cut, breathing shallow, eyes heavy-lidded. When Sam can't handle his reality, Dean's there to show him what it really looks like, and it works. It's the only fucking thing that does.

Still, maybe it wouldn't have gone so far had it not been for Dean's mortal fear of baths. They've never _bathed_ ; you don't take sit-down baths when you live your life in and out of motel rooms and crappy rentals, and that's left Dean with nothing but horror-film associations when the subject comes up. Bathtubs are for drowning in, fists pounding uselessly on the ceramic sides while something holds you under. Or bleeding out in, suicides splayed like marionettes in vats of red, and that's worse. If Sam could have stood in the tub while they did this, let Dean make clinical cuts and then funnel the blood down the plughole, things might have been different. But Dean doesn't do tubs, definitely not tubs and blood (tubs _of_ blood and empty corpses in them) and that left the bed, Sam with his thighs spread while Dean leaned close and worked between them, giving them both their release.

It wasn't hard to get fucked up about it. It wasn't like they weren't fucked up over each other to begin with.

People's brains, they work off of triggers, like machines. Sam's on his back on the bed, chest heaving, head tipped back, and Dean's looking up the whole length of him from his place between Sam's legs, thumbing firmly at the new cut on his thigh. "Good?" he says. "That good, Sammy?"

And Sam moans, tosses his head, tenses his thigh so the blood spills out of the cut and over Dean's knuckle in a warm wet gush. He says "yeah," broken open like Dean's doing something right, "yeah. Another one, Dean, please," his obvious relief making Dean's belly warm with pride as he takes up his knife again.

"Sssh," Dean whispers, "I gotcha, _there_ \--" Sam's skin breaks open along the slash of a new cut, Sam clutching at the sheets and groaning his gratitude, and Dean, Dean's aching hard between his legs. He's so fucking turned on that the touch of sheets on his skin is almost painful, but it's okay; it isn't new; it's normal. It's like it's barely even sexual, somehow, just his body going _yeah, yeah, like that_ , approving what they're doing in the only way it knows how. Sam needing him, Dean obliging -- this is something whose roots run so deep into Dean, twist so intricately around every part of him, that getting it, _enacting_ it, is more than sex; it's like sustenance. So...this kind of reaction is natural. It's just triggers.

It feels natural, too, the first time Dean puts his mouth there on the cuts he's made on Sam's thigh, the rough flat of his tongue dragging against the gashes. Dean's heart is pounding a furious tarantella in his chest, heel of his hand working the cuts, and Sam's shifting, crying out, like it's not enough but Dean doesn't dare cut any more and he doesn't know what else could make it _more_.

Until Sam draws his breath in low, hitches his hips, and fuck, Dean can smell him, the raw heat of his dick where it's straining his boxers, how hard he is. Sam twists a little, caught on some plateau, and then his hand falls on the back of Dean's neck like an axe, final, sure. It's electric, surging through all the uncertain heat in Dean and transmuting it into something sharp and desperate, and Dean can't help but fall inward, mouth open, supplicant.

Without question, he goes for the blood. It's not that he doesn't want Sam's dick, the fat thrust of it stretching his lips, spreading his throat open, because fuck, he does, apparently; he _does_. But the bloodlust is different, older. Deeper. Dean licks at the cuts he made on his brother's body and he sucks at the blood until Sam is thrashing, keening on the bed. It's the same blood Dean's been cleaning off of Sam for twenty-some years after hunts gone bad; the same blood he tastes when he bites his own tongue, the root of the pull between them. It's the marrow that's done what Dean couldn't, gotten into all the places inside Sam that nothing else could touch, and Dean wants it in him, wants to make Sam scream and plead with it. Sam's fingers curl into Dean's hair, pinioning him in place, and Dean stays.

That's the first time Sam comes with Dean's mouth on him. Dean's fingernails are mapping paths on the outside of Sam's thigh while his tongue probes at the cuts on the inside of it, and Sam hits this zenith more complete than anything Dean's managed before, seizes up and comes in his boxers half an inch from Dean's face.

It's not the first time Dean's jerked off, after, but it's the first time Sam's watched, body lax and contented on the bed, eyes wide and glittering in the dark.

After that, trying to make distinctions doesn't really work any more. Dean will set his knife to the inside of Sam's upper arm, press the point into skin, and Sam will get hard. Dean -- Dean's hard from the moment the hilt kisses his palm, some current of electricity rushing through him to greet it. Sam lies back, spreads his legs, parts his lips, and Dean wants him, wants to fill him up with clean pain and himself until there's no room for anything else.

Two nights after Dean first puts his mouth on Sam, Sam takes off his shirt and steers Dean's knife to his chest. Sam's not shivering, not restless, not strung out on Lucifer, but he's beautiful with the overbright bedside lamp casting shadows on his skin, and the point of Dean's blade is in the notch of his clavicle. Sam wraps his hand around Dean's and says, "Please," but Dean's mouth is dry.

"What?" he gets out. "Sam, what do you need, man?"

Sam ducks his head a little, like he's shy. Like, after all of this, half naked with Dean's marks all over his body, he's still capable of shyness. "If I could see you," he says, "if I could see you when I looked in the mirror, it'd -- it might be easier." He swallows. "It might help."

Dean feels his dick fill and pulse, smearing precome wet against the inside of his boxers. "God, Sam." His voice is barely above a whisper. There's no point in pretending any more. "Yeah. Okay."

Dean can't draw for shit, never could, but with his knife, he's an artist. He traces the lines of Sam's collarbones until there's a thin red mark there, like a stretch of thread. He draws curlicues over the rise of his pectorals, around his nipples. He sets the point of the blade to the centre of Sam's chest, over his diaphragm, and draws it down and down.

By the time he reaches the waistband of Sam's shorts, he's breathless, bruised with want, and Sam's moaning, clutching at the sheets and at Dean's shoulders. Dean swallows, rolls into him, and when his teeth find the hollow of Sam's throat Sam bucks up _hard_ , pulls him in. "Fuck, _yes_. Harder."

He sucks. He closes his teeth over the tendon in Sam's neck and sucks until his lips are tender and Sam is rocking up as Dean rocks down in hard, jagged thrusts. Dean's rough, hands scraping over the raw places on Sam's chest and arms, but Sam isn't gentle either, fingernails marking up Dean's spine and the wings of his shoulderblades like he's forgotten where the pain should begin and end. Not that it matters anyway, with the two of them twisted up in each other like this, dicks rubbing rough together, bruise on Sam's neck so deep it tastes of iron. When Dean breaks away, it's only because Sam's flipped him, one hand in his shorts to drag them down, and fuck, yes, Dean is on board with this. Yes, yes, _yes_.

Sam's all big hands and strong thighs, getting in the way, but Dean knows a thing or two about sex (which this is; this is sex; Dean's having sex with his brother and it feels like all the pieces of his life have just slotted into place. He'll deal with that later). He gets Sam's boxers out of the way, palms Sam's thighs, runs his thumbs over the cuts on the insides, rows of them, barely healed. Then Sam's rocking down against him, the whole heavy weight of him pinning Dean to the mattress, and his big hand is wrapped around both of them, holy _shit_. Sam's wet, the iron-silk heat of him sliding slickly against Dean, and it's that more than anything that makes Dean throw back his head and just _thrust_ , fucking into the tunnel of Sam's fingers.

"That what you want?" He can't stop talking, apparently, running his mouth while Sam makes his now-familiar little broken sounds and ruts against him, his hand making little slipping sounds. "Good, Sam? Working?"

It's what he's always said, checking in, touchstone, and Sam groans and then leans up to bite at Dean's mouth. "Almost," he says. He licks the blade of Dean's teeth, and Dean thinks he can fill in the blanks from there.

They kiss like they're fighting, teeth clicking, jaws going wide as they thrust their tongues against each other. Dean's panting, hips pistoning furiously into Sam's hand, dick against Sam's dick, and Sam bites at his tongue, sucks it into his mouth. It's a give-and-take, almost violent, but that's the whole point of this, Dean thinks as his thighs start shivering, climax building like an arrow of heat in his groin; it's not something offered or taken, but something that's fought for between them, like everything else. Satisfaction through blood.

They come within seconds of each other, little linked earthquakes in a chain, and Sam is hot and wet on Dean's stomach and thighs, his blood hot and wet in Dean's mouth where orgasm made him clumsy. Sam laughs, breathless, exhilarated, and when he pulls back the blood is on his teeth. It looks good there, Dean thinks, in the second before he realizes it's his own lip he bit open.

Looking at Sam like this, the two of them heaving for breath in the stark light of the bedside lamp, Dean thinks there's nothing he can possibly say, but really, that's a lie. There's a lot he could say, too much, and all of it is pointless, dead-end warnings and promises. Sam's eyes are blown-black, drugged up, like he's high on this and he never wants to come down, blood flashing on his teeth and his hair wild from Dean's fingers. The lines of Dean's cuts are smeared on his chest, Dean's steel signature all over him. Dean's blood is rushing in his ears, loud as steam-power, and the thing is -- the hell of it is -- they're happy. Insane, maybe; unhealthy and addicted and fucked up, but happy. There's a lot Dean could say, but there's only one thing he wants to.

He reaches out for the thready cut at Sam's collarbone, trails his fingers slowly along it. Sam watches him, half-smiling, as his hand treks down Sam's abdomen, touches his thigh, cups his softening dick. The cuts on Sam's thigh are still pink, barely closed, and Dean presses there with his knuckles, listens to Sam's breath catch.

"That good?" he prompts. "Sam? Working?"

Sam laughs, licks Dean's blood off his teeth. "Yes," he says.

*******************


End file.
